Backwards
by Erica T
Summary: Draco reflects. WARNING: Character death. Do not read if you are prone to horrible fits of tears. But, I don't think this is all that good anyway, so it might not be as sad as I think. Just read it, you be the judge.


  
  


Disclaimer: Not mine, save for plot and characters who are not officially part of the Potterverse....yet. 

  
  


Backwards 

  
  
  
  


Everything we ever did was backwards. 

  
  


We were sleeping together before we went out on a real 'normal' date. I think she did it to annoy her brother. I know I did it to annoy both her brother, and my father. This was back when that was all I cared about. 

  
  


****

  
  


"So, what are you going to tell your brother?"

"Who says I have to tell him anything?"

"He's going to want to know why you weren't in your dorm all night. Because your roommates will talk." 

"If he asks, I'm going to tell him the truth. I was in the Head Boy's room, having the best sex of my life."

"He'll kill me."

"No he won't" 

"Yes he will."

"No, he won't. Because if he does, I'll tell my mom why the car is always nearly out of gas."

"That won't do me any good if you do that after he kills me."

"That's why I'll threaten him with it before."

"I still don't think it's a good idea."

"Well, what do you care anyway? This is just sex. I'm doing this for personal gratification, not for any sort of relationship." 

"I care because I refuse to give up a perfectly good sex partner just because her brother is a moron."

"That's almost sweet."

"Don't get used to it."

"Don't worry. I won't."

"I guess it would be fun to hang this over your brother's head...."

"Now you're getting it..."

  
  


****

  
  


Of course, it wasn't quite so funny when her brother finally did clue into the fact that his 'innocent' baby sister was sneaking out of the Gryffindor Common Room and not coming back. That was an encounter he didn't want to remember.

  
  


We slept with each other off and on for two years before War finally broke out. That ended whatever it was that we had, until of course, Potter beat old Voldemort at his own game. And then, for some odd reason, she came back to me. 

  
  


****

She found me in the Leaky Cauldron, drinking myself into oblivion. 

"What are you doing here?"

"Looking for you." 

"But why? I thought you were in it just to annoy your brother." 

"Well, I was. But then something rather unexpected happened." 

"What was that, then?"

"I fell in love with my partner in crime." I nearly choked on my Ogdens. 

"You're kidding me." One look at her face proved that she wasn't kidding. She almost looked hurt that I assumed she wasn't completely serious.

"I thought you knew me well enough to know when I'm serious." She accused, before continuing. "Considering the fact that you've been sleeping with me for 2 years!" 

"We agreed that it just was sex. We agreed that we weren't going to form emotional attachments." I argued. 

"No. We agreed that we were there to annoy the people trying to control our lives. We agreed that we weren't going to have a relationship. Any other things you told yourself, were just that. Things that you told yourself, and neglected to share with me."

"What do you want from me then?"

"I don't know. I do know that I don't want to go back to our 'arrangement' in a few months just because one of us needs sex. Because I can't do that anymore. But I don't want to get involved in any sort of romantic relationship with you so you can keep your sex outlet. If anything happens with us, I want both of us to feel the same way. And I know you don't feel that way. So, I'm leaving. I'm leaving town, and I'm leaving our world. I may be back, I may not. If you want to find me, I won't be hard to find, but don't come to me just because you can't find anyone else to sleep with you." 

I stared at her. She was leaving? She couldn't leave. Weasley's don't just leave, they're very loyal and loving of all things magic. And what about me? That was a good question. What about me? What did I want from her. She turned back to me before she left at looked at my drink. 

"And I think you've had quite enough of that stuff. You're very disagreeable when you're drunk." 

  
  


**** 

  
  


I waited two weeks before I went after her. When she opened her door, she glared at me, tapped her foot on the linoleum floor and raised an eyebrow. I told her that living without her in my life was pointless. That, I guessed that I had fallen in love with her too.

  
  


We had two children before we even thought about getting married. We just didn't feel the need to complicate our relationship any further. We were fine, living in a comfortable little house outside of Manchester. Our two daughters were joys to have, but they did take up a lot of our time. And with both of us working, we really didn't have time for a wedding anyway. It was only when Potter and Granger finally found us that Ginny remembered about fluffy dresses and fancy cakes. 

The entire visit was fine, even though Potter kept throwing me nasty looks. I ignored him, and made sure that our youngest didn't wake up, as she had fallen asleep while I was reading the girls a story. And then Hermione just had to ask....

  
  
  
  


****

"How long ago did you two get married, anyway?" Ginny snapped her head around to look at her. 

"What?"

"When did you get married?" Ginny looked at me, as if suddenly realizing that there was something we forgot to do. 

"We didn't." I said. 

"What!" This was the first time that Potter had actually addressed me. 

"Well, we haven't really needed to. I mean, we have two kids, and we live in the same house, we have our own jobs."

"How do you not need to?" Hermione asked, bewildered.

"We just don't. All we wanted was a simple, stable life. That's why we're here. Not in Wizard London. We're happy this way. Not all of us need to get married right out of school." 

"There was the threat of complete world destruction. We did what we felt was right for the time." Potter argued. 

"I'm not saying you shouldn't have. But you two have your own lives. We have ours, and there's nothing wrong with it. We love each other as much as you two do." Ginny said. 

"Oh, Ginny, we realize that there's nothing wrong with it. But you know that your mother isn't going to like it. She's very old fashioned. Why, when Lavender got pregnant, she threatened to disown Ron unless he married her."

"Mum finally caught him, then?"

"Oh, she did. But, Gin, you've got two kids, and you're not married. Your Mum won't like that at all." 

"Well, then it's a good thing that I'm here, and she's there." 

"She's been looking for you too. And she'll find you." 

"Fine. But, we're happy the way we are." 

****

  
  


After they left, Ginny retreated to our room for a while. When I went up there later, I found her thumbing through a very old issue of some bridal magazine. I then discovered that it wasn't just Granger that assumed we were married, but all our Muggle neighbours, and people we worked with. And we both discovered that we really didn't want to keep lying to people anymore. Even if it was just nodding and saying the other was fine. 

So, we got married. Potter gave her away, Granger was the maid of honour, and a friend from work was my best man. Our daughters were the flower girls and ring bearers. And we got Dumbledore in to marry us in the community hall where we were living. We all enjoyed it. It was a good time. 

Except that it was the middle of a snowstorm. You would think that we would have gotten married in the summer when good weather was nearly always guaranteed. But, no. Ginny wanted a winter wedding. To be different. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


And when Ginny died, the sun had never shone brighter. The summer after she turned forty, she became deathly ill. She had developed breast cancer, and it had spread faster than any case doctors had ever seen, and there was nothing that they could do, because nothing worked. Our daughters were thirteen and fifteen respectively. 

  
  


****

"Dad!" Rhiannon cried from our porch. I looked up from the piece of wood I was chopping, to ease my tension. 

"What is it?"

"It's Mum. She wants us. All of us." 

"Where's Juliana?"

"She was already upstairs with her." 

"I'm coming, you go on." 

It took me about two minutes to get up there with them. I knew something was going to happen that day. 

****

  
  


She died, warm and safe, with her family around her. I remember, both our daughters cried forever, and it was up to me to pull us back together. But it was so hard without her. At the funeral, her mother got up and told the congregation that she had come into the world a week late, and had left it a lifetime early. And we all cried all over again. 

In most marriages, it's the man who dies first, it's statistically proven that men have shorter lifespans. But not in our marriage. 

  
  


Because everything we ever did had to be backwards. 

  
  



End file.
